“Change is possible. Repair is possible.
All you need to do is to show up with your willingness, courage, curiosity, and care.”
Resilient Relationships
Mediation to Strengthen Working Relationships
Our vision is to create more peace in the world through the power of building resilient relationships.
Our mission is to build capacity within individuals, groups, and communities for leaning into conflict and harnessing the generative power it holds to transform, strengthen, and provide safety through restorative repair processes.
The Offer
We focus on workplace relationships, supporting colleagues, teams and individual contributors to navigate the inevitable tension and conflict that can arise when working together.
Whenever conflict is present, it is always inviting a change to happen. That’s the power of healthy conflict. Held well, conflict is a transformational energy of creativity. It can lead to more resilient relationships and communities, and wise solutions for the challenges we face at this moment in history.
We believe these skills will be crucial if we wish to successfully face the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Our world is rapidly polarising. Social discourse is deeply fractured. And, as we face unprecedented speed and scale of change, it is natural that relationships can become strained.
How can we develop the capacity to be a non-reactive presence that supports others to settle, engage in generative dialogue, and find common ground on which to take peaceful action?
We can do this together by developing Resilient Relationships – where the creative potential of conflict is realised.
Our Approach
Our approach is based on developing willingness for healthy change, responsibility, emotional maturity, care and repair, which differs from more traditional mediation.
Every person, pair, or team in a mediation context is different. We don’t rely on one method or one structure to meet these unique contexts. We combine multiple conflict transformation disciplines we are trained in, bringing a balanced, bespoke, and personalised approach to you.
Together, we have over 20 years experience of working in conflict training, mediation, and facilitating repair. From this, we have designed our approach that pulls from the very best of our knowledge and skills.
Mediation
Mediation is a process which allows time and space for listening to all perspectives, understanding the core of issues or challenges, clarifying where there is divergence and common ground, building a shared sense of understanding and empathy, and making decisions together based on these insights.
It is a process that frees stuck dynamics and strengthens relationships. It is not just reserved for serious disputes or fallouts, it can be used as a method for growing trust and connection before conflict or tension arises.
Who is it for:
Colleagues or business partners in conflict, or those who wish to avoid conflict arising
Colleagues struggling with effective communication
Stakeholders working in partnership who are dealing with conflict or tension in their dynamic
Any pair of people working together and struggling to move through change, find common ground, or connection for taking action
Any pair of people working together in which there has been a rupture to the relationship and both people wish to repair it.
For Teams: Mediation Circles
We provide support for teams that are stuck in tense or conflicted dynamics. We draw on a restorative approach to create mediative sessions for teams to explore what has happened, and the impact it has had, take shared responsibility, and create actions for moving forward.
Who is it for:
This process is for any team that wishes to work through stuck dynamics and unleash more creativity and compassion into your working relationships, specifically:
Teams processing a significant conflict or event
Teams facing difficulty moving through change together
Teams that wish to improve connection, understanding and decision-making processes
Any team that feels a restorative process is necessary and is willing to step into repair together
Getting started
Conflict can be a generative, strengthening process, but it is also true that it can feel uncomfortable and upsetting. The urge to turn away from it can be very strong. For this reason, we consider this work a bit like swimming in deeper ocean waters: it’s a big commitment, and not for those who are not ready or willing to dive in.
To assess this, our process starts with an initial free exploration session with you in which we will uncover where and at what stage your conflict is, what your hopes are for repair, what level of emotional awareness is present about the issues, and what willingness and responsibility is in your system or relationship for taking part in a repair process.
We will then make a joint decision about working together. If we decide that we are not the right fit for your needs, we will always signpost you to other services that might be the right support for you.
If we decide to proceed, we will design a process based on your needs, gain agreement, and then move through it alongside you, one step at a time. We never progress to the next stage until we have an agreement that all are ready. In conflict, we often fall into responding from fear, defensiveness or anger. When the process is held with care, and is slowed down, we have more space to listen, self-reflect, and express ourselves authentically. So we take the process as slow as it needs to be until readiness for the next step is clear.
The process is complete once responsibility for the context of the conflict is shared, agreements for restorative or mediative action are shared and agreed upon, and all involved agree the process is complete.
We hold a variety of different ways to honour and close mediative processes which we design specifically with each group.
Change is possible. Repair is possible. All you need to do is to show up with your willingness, courage, curiosity, and care.
Who We Are
I’m Nina, Associate at Animate - a transformational coach, mediator, Non-Violent Communication practitioner, and a people professional with over 15 years experience of working in HR at senior level. My passion has always been to get the best out of people, which comes from taking the time to understand others on a deeper level. I truly believe that conflict can be resolved when the right components are in place: when people feel safe when they feel heard and seen, and when they are held in a space where their needs can be met. I personally have a deep need for safety and my practice is built around this.
My whole career has been based around people - because I love them! All the wonderful uniqueness, talents and differences. Through my coaching work, I have experienced and witnessed the similarities that we all share, the hopes and fears that show up in us all, as well as the things that make us uniquely us.
Being able to witness people shift, explore, expand, grow and change as a result of coaching is an absolute gift. Coaching is the best job in the world - it is an absolute privilege to walk alongside people on their journey.
Personally, I have been navigating various forms of conflict, discomfort, and inner conflict for my whole life and I have invested time and effort to turn this into a strong sense of inner peace and safety. Now, I’m passionate about supporting others to do the same. Peaceful and safe relationships at work are possible - people deserve them. I love supporting individuals and teams, it feels fully aligned to our vision of creating more peace in the world by making our working relationships better – doing this work is full of so many opportunities and potential for personal and team growth and impact.
I have an MSc in Human Resource Management and am CIPD qualified to level 7. I am certified in Advanced Coaching Practice from the ICF, I am trained in Restorative Justice Practices, Action learning facilitation, Coaching Constellations and Gestalt methods. I am also trained in Reiki and Zumba – which meet my needs for both peace and joy.
I’m Francesca, Associate at Animate - a mediator, conflict transformation trainer, coach, facilitator and participative leadership trainer who supports leaders and teams to deepen their self-awareness and create resilient relational cultures. I bring over a decade of practice experience, constantly amazed at the power conflict has to strengthen relationships and culture. This isn’t to say I am comfortable with conflict - it’s often a deeply uncomfortable process, even after all my training! What gets easier with practice is staying with the experience of disagreement, change, and tension in healthy ways that allow the creative and restorative process to unfold.
My own journey with conflict started long ago, as it does for most of us, in childhood. I witnessed so many missed opportunities for conflict repair. My ability to lean on my training has unfolded in my professional and personal life. I have learned to trust in my skills but also in the process of conflict to always unveil learning and opportunity.
My wish is that all relationships establish the expectation of repair following ruptures. Harm will always happen in relationships - but can we expect a repair process? Can we stay in the dialogue? Do we have the self-awareness, responsibility, and maturity for it?
My mission is to support people to build this relational resilience and along the way, I’m learning too.
I am an Accredited Mediator, Lewis Deep Democracy Instructor and Facilitator, Integral Development Coach, Systemic Coaching and Constellations Practitioner and have completed extensive training in the Enneagram. I live in Scotland with my husband and dog and enjoy walking around lochs and forests with both of them.
The methods we draw on:
Non-Violent Communication
Restorative Circles
Processwork and Lewis Deep Democracy
Narrative Storywork in Conflict Settings
Restorative Justice
The Enneagram
Integral Coaching
Systemic Coaching and Constellations
The Work that Reconnects by Joanna Macy
Internal Family Systems
Dialogue for Peaceful Change
Action Learning
Gestalt
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